Q
Adapting and integrating this technology into multiple specialties poses quite a challenge I would imagine, what do you foresee being the most challenging part of this process as you take on this task?
schEMA has to be “taught” medicine, and our physicians teach the corpus by repeating and restating every question in every way a user may ask it in natural language. And each journal article over years of publication has to be ingested into the system. It’s a time consuming process!
Q
Is there a particular specialty that you think will benefit the most from the melding of Modernizing Medicine’s technology with Watson?
Our ultimate goal is to have equal improvement in all specialties, but dermatology will be the first field to benefit from the cognitive computing power of IBM Watson. Modernizing Medicine’s schEMA application can give physicians the ability to, in seconds, query thousands of medical journal articles from peer-reviewed publications. Since approximately 30 percent of the dermatology industry uses EMA and would have the ability to use schEMA, this is a huge opportunity for practitioners in this field to maintain evidence-based clinical decision support at the point-of-care.
Q
How will the development of these kinds of more sophisticated tools change the game when it comes to how we think about EMR/EHR systems’ role in healthcare? What do you think will be the most profound result from this next evolution of products?
An opportunity to truly revolutionize healthcare lies within evidence based medicine and cognitive computing. This enhanced technology will generate more desired and accurate outcomes for patients. Furthermore, automated systems and those combining the use of structured and unstructured data will help physicians not only make informed decisions about their patients but also make it much easier to succeed with outcome-based payments, supporting their bottom-line. These systems can also automatically integrate vital information on past or present disease epidemics (e.g. the Ebola outbreak). This will impact the healthcare tremendously by expediting the treatment of patients at a much faster and effective rate.
Q
What else is on the horizon for Modernizing Medicine? Are there any trends in the industry you are keeping an eye on in terms of shaping future innovations?
To steer the company to lasting success in an environment characterized by change, Modernizing Medicine will capitalize on the growing trend of telemedicine. Starting with integration with EMA Dermatology, our telemedicine app will allow dermatologists to treat existing patients when a virtual visit is appropriate. The app will also enable physicians to get paid for their time and record the visit in the dermatology EMR system.
In addition, we’re introducing EMA DermPath™, a new dermatopathology module that will be integrated with EMA Dermatology. DermPath has been designed to support a wide range of users, from individuals or small groups of providers who interpret their own slides, to practices that outsource the technical component, to practices with larger laboratories that, in addition to processing EMA generated requisitions, process external requisitions received via courier.
Q
You are nominated for EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2015 in Florida. What does that nomination represent to you when you think about the relative success of Modernizing Medicine?
I am honored to be nominated for EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2015, however, I would not be considered for this award if it weren’t for the support of our company’s incredible team. Since my trip to Dr. Sherling’s office in 2009, my ultimate goal has been to transform how healthcare information is created, consumed and utilized. The future of healthcare requires tailored technologies that make it easy to manage the exploding amounts of patient data. In a relatively short time, we have developed a solution that does just that, enabling us to capture substantial market share and emerge as a physician-favorite EMR system. This recognition serves as a testament to the hard work that the Modernizing Medicine team has put into making our goal a reality.
